Dashboard
The only two questions you need to ask in your daily standup scrum
Arjun Rajkumar
October 06, 2024
Daily standups are super useful but can quickly go sideways if not done properly. Ideally a daily scrum should be super brief - but if your team co-workers are not on time, or you end up waiting for the PM to show up - it can go on for longer. Also, if you don't keep it to the two questions below, the discussions in a daily scrum will not be relevant to the daily standup. To avoid these here are the only two questions you need to ask if your aim is to make the daily standup useful, and you want to get the most out of it.
First, start by telling everyone to be brief while answering these questions. Answering these questions briefly is a skill which your developers will pickup if done regularly. The only two questions you need to ask are:
1. What did you work on today? Highlight only the important work - and also any work that others in the team are dependent on. The aim with this question is not to check if a co-worker is working or not. Instead, it is to find out if the co-worker is working on the right things, if you are moving forward towards your team goals. And, if the co-worker is implementing the solution in the right way.
2. Are there any blockers or problems that's stopping you from getting your work done? This is important as you don't want developers to end up wasting time waiting on someone else to finish a feature. You also dont want your co-workers to be stuck on something for too long. If they have a blocker, the ideal way is to briefly discuss it, and if it requires further discussion - assing a meeting or email for it afterwards. Do not go into a detail discussion about it in the daily standup itself as most of the other co-workers have work to do, and want to get back to their work.
If you stick to these two questions, and keep the conversation brief, you will end up having a realyl useful and productive daily standup scrum meeting.
First, start by telling everyone to be brief while answering these questions. Answering these questions briefly is a skill which your developers will pickup if done regularly. The only two questions you need to ask are:
1. What did you work on today? Highlight only the important work - and also any work that others in the team are dependent on. The aim with this question is not to check if a co-worker is working or not. Instead, it is to find out if the co-worker is working on the right things, if you are moving forward towards your team goals. And, if the co-worker is implementing the solution in the right way.
2. Are there any blockers or problems that's stopping you from getting your work done? This is important as you don't want developers to end up wasting time waiting on someone else to finish a feature. You also dont want your co-workers to be stuck on something for too long. If they have a blocker, the ideal way is to briefly discuss it, and if it requires further discussion - assing a meeting or email for it afterwards. Do not go into a detail discussion about it in the daily standup itself as most of the other co-workers have work to do, and want to get back to their work.
If you stick to these two questions, and keep the conversation brief, you will end up having a realyl useful and productive daily standup scrum meeting.